


Harriet Potter & the Stray Cat

by DearCat



Series: Tumblr Archive [35]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Female Harry, Fluff, Gen, badass Harriet, badass Xanxus's mom, kid!Xanxus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26911636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearCat/pseuds/DearCat
Summary: Harriet has a people saving thing, she knows that. And if this time, "people" is a skinny red-eyed child with a tendency to push boundaries and a too big love for baths... Well, who is going to stop her?
Relationships: Harry Potter & Xanxus (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!)
Series: Tumblr Archive [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533116
Comments: 70
Kudos: 905





	Harriet Potter & the Stray Cat

**Author's Note:**

> So far so good. I think it's going to take about a month to pass the drabbles to AO3. Then, Empirical Evidence.

##  [Unsteady shelves]

Harri is bored. It's not something she had expected, to be honest. Though she probably should have. Magic makes people age slower, this is a fact. A fact that she had known. Peripherally, at least. Her magical core is on the same range as Dumbledore's and Tom's used to be. 

But looking at the way even her friends start ageing around her when she still looks just 17. It smacked her in the face mercilessly. Her core is bigger, she will age slower. It's starting to show. 

And she's so  _ bored _ besides. 

Not even Hermione throwing interesting things her way has been enough lately. No matter that Harri's patience for investigation has grown greatly during the last 15 years. 

So she has opted for a change of setting. Italy was picked mostly at random, the bakery out of restlessness. She still has more than enough money to live comfortingly but Harri was never one to be idle. So a bakery it is. 

It's not in the best part of town. It's not even in a good part of town. It's in the middle of the slums, actually. That's no accident. Very few people will go looking for the famous Harriet Potter in a place like this. And, like it or not, folk in the slums have a very clear "I haven't seen or heard anything" mentality.

Better for her, honestly. Besides, the Italian Magical Ministry is far more relaxed about secrecy laws than its English counterpart. Something about an entire community of squibs using basic soul magic. 

None of that prepared her for finding the small beaten up form of a black-haired child trying to climb up the shelves of her bakery's kitchen. He can't have any ill intent, the wards wouldn't have let him in otherwise. Harri closes the door quietly behind herself, lips pursing as she observes the kid. 

He's going to fall. 

As soon as she thinks that, the kid loses his footing and tumbles down. Harri catches him just barely, arms pulling him up to her hip as she studiously ignores both the way she can feel his ribs and the ineffectual attempts at escaping her grip. "Careful," Harri admonishes, "that would have hurt." 

She's not sure whether it's fear or confusion that has him stilling, but still he remains all the way up the stairs and to her bathroom. Following pure gut feeling, Harri prepares a bath for him, water just high enough that he won't drown, and then lets him down cautiously on the cold tile. "Alright," she sighs after giving him a once over, "take the bath. Leave the clothes by the door so I can clean them for you." 

"Why?"

This is awkward. "Because your injuries will get infected if they're dirty." No cajoling, no soothing, just plain fact. Harri needs him compliant so she can take care of him, too much sweetness and he'll be suspicious. Her heart hurts. Harri ignores that studiously. 

The kid doesn't answer that, he just looks up at her with dark mistrustful red eyes, lips pressed tightly together and arms crossed over his chest. But he does slowly move to check the water's temperature so Harri leaves him to that, closing the door softly behind her as she drags a hand through her messy black hair. 

What a mess. What is she even doing? Still, her gut feeling is usually somewhat reliable.

Ignoring all the self-doubt that has decided to come out now to play, she leaves some left-overs to heat up before taking the dirty clothes the kid left by the door. He didn’t run off at first opportunity, which is good. Harri leaves them to clean themselves up with magic and doesn’t bother trying to hurry up the process.

Wet clothes are as good an excuse as any other to wrangle the kid into letting her feed him. A predictable excuse, too. So he’d probably fight Harri less on it. If he decides to fight her at all, he seems to be under the impression that compliance might be the path of less harm. 

It’s a start. 

The stone floors are cold to the touch, maybe she should add charms for that? Harri had only gotten them that way because the aesthetic reminds her of Hogwarts but now… it just doesn’t feel child-friendly? Too cold, too impersonal. Maybe her friends are right and she needs to start adding up some personal touches. 

A small crack takes her out of her thoughts and Harri goes to pick him up before she can think better of it. It’s just… the stone floors are cold. He doesn’t seem averse to it, though. Not if the way his hands twist around the fabric of her blouse is any indication. 

“I can lend you some of Teddy’s clothes while yours dry,” she offers and deliberately ignores the tenseness of him.

He does nod, though. And she takes that. Good enough. He’s dried up and clothed quickly enough and Harri takes it as a good sign that he willingly comes closer for her to pick up, settling on her hip calmly.

“Are you hungry? I’m heating up some left-overs.” 

That gets her another nod, a little more eager. She hides her smile against the top of his hair, taking advantage of the way he’s tucked his head under her chin. Harri knows what it’s like to be that age and hungry, though maybe not that hungry. And she has a people saving thing. 

It’s ok, isn’t it? What if this time ‘people’ turns out to be a small scrap of a child who somehow snuck up into her kitchen. He’s just hungry, she can understand that. “Careful,” she murmurs, “it’s hot, don’t burn yourself.”

##  [In my pocket, under the pillow]

Her little stray cat shows up occasionally, after that day. He doesn’t give her a name, not a rhyme or reason for his comings and goings. Harri still doesn’t know how he’s sneaking inside her bakery. He’s quiet and skittish, inquisitive red eyes lingering here and there as he ventures to investigate.

It takes a while but the less Harri reacts to the kitten’s adventures in nosing around, the more comfortable the kid becomes. It’s come to the point where he comes at least once every week and she’s discovered quite a few things about him. Kitten has the most adorable pout she’s ever seen, he’s ridiculously smart, likes watching her knead the dough and could live in a bathtub if left to his own devices. 

He’s keen on pushing boundaries.

Harri lets him. There’s been thankfully little reason for her to stop him and he seems to be perfectly fine accepting her limits if she explains the reasons behind them. Right now he seems determined to come to her and raise his arms, silently demanding to be picked up. What he’s trying to prove with that, she doesn’t know. She sees no harm in letting him have it. 

So she spends most of those days with an armful of child, softly talking him through everything she does. 

Kitten shows up in her bakery with what Harri assumes he thinks it’s a scowl. It is actually that little pout he does that she loves. Not that the witch tells him this, of course, she just kneels and smiles, opening her arms in invitation. The sigh he gives as he winds his arms around her neck is so comically soul-deep that she has to bite her lip not to laugh. 

“Bath, kitten?”

He sighs again but there’s a small nod against her neck so she picks him up, leaving the dough on the table. It’ll survive. Baths, she’s come to understand, are the answer to all of the kitten’s troubles. 

Tired? That’s fine, have a bath and then a nap.

Bad day? No worries, have a bath. 

Exploring gone wrong? Bath. 

She’s strangely charmed by it. Harri prepares a bath for him, lets him play with the little whale she bought for him on an impulse. To be honest, Harri hadn’t noticed how much she’s been relying on magic for the most basic things until she couldn’t use it anymore. 

The kitten might be a little boy and she might be oh so attached but he’s not  _ hers _ . There are still secrecy laws she has to adhere to, at least until she gets word back from the Italian ministry. He stills under her hands for a moment as she shampoos his hair but continues playing soon enough. 

It shouldn’t feel like such a victory but it does. 

Things escalate from there. Kitten liked to push boundaries and Harri is not one to deny him the simple things. So when he takes to sneak in in the middle of the night? Curl up beside her on her bed? 

That's fine, Harri trains herself to recognize him so that she doesn't wake with a spell already on her lips. 

Kitten likes to reassure himself that he's welcome so he invades her life in pretty much every opportunity he has. It becomes common to see him around the bakery, to have little hands helping her with the bread. 

A year later and he's more comfortable in his welcome, still a silent child but he does speak more. He's more open with his affections. Harri still asks nothing and the kid doesn't offer. 

Which is why she's surprised when frantic knocking wakes her up one night. The kitten would have slipped in, Harri is expecting nobody. She goes to the door, still in her pyjamas but with her wand tightly clutched in her hand. 

At the other side of the door is a woman, skinny and injured with messy black hair and red eyes of a shade Harri knows. By her side is the kitten, with a split lip and bloodied knuckles that make something ugly and dangerous stir inside of Harri. 

He's scowling, arms crossed over his chest. The woman takes in Harri's reaction and nods. "I'll deal with it," there's promise in her voice, the weight of a weapon hidden on her coat. "Can you take Xanxus for the week?" 

Harri hands her the dagger she had on her own pocket and gestures the kitten inside. "Of course." 

**Author's Note:**

> So, as always:  
> My social media:  
> ▪︎[Tumblr](dearcat1.tumblr.com), for more drabbles like this one.  
> ▪︎[Twitter](https://twitter.com/DearCat24), for snippets of current work and random thoughts.  
> ▪︎Discord, if you feel like chatting: DearCat#2256


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